Dark Secrets, Part 14: Finding peace in the truth

July 15, 2006|JEFF PARROTT Tribune Staff Writer

Last of 14 parts Michael Grant is scheduled to be released from the Westville Correctional Facility in September 2007. Chip St. Clair, Grant's 30-year-old son who turned him in after 26 years on the run, hopes he stays in prison as long as possible. He was disheartened to learn this week that Elkhart homicide detectives, unable to find a copy of an autopsy report, probably won't pursue an investigation into the mysterious death of 20-month-old Jeffrey Balsley, whom Grant had been watching. "It's said because the circumstances in that particular murder were so similar to the Ingersoll boy," St. Clair said. "It just seems that Michael Grant evades justice again." But regardless, St. Clair says learning the truth about Grant's past on a January night in 1998 set him on a path toward happiness. Today the 66-year-old Grant denies St. Clair's accusations that he abused him throughout his childhood. He says his son has fabricated the abuse stories out of anger for having been deceived so long about Grant's past. "When the truth came out, it profoundly hurt and embarrassed a lot of people whom I love very much," Grant wrote The Tribune from prison after declining to be interviewed. "My son's at the top of the list." But St. Clair says he wouldn't repeatedly tell humiliating and embarrassing stories, each time opening up emotional wounds, for no reason. And he insists he didn't turn in Grant out of revenge or anger. Since April 2005, he has headed the Michigan chapter of Justice for Children, a nonprofit that advocates for children who have slipped through the cracks of the child welfare system. "When you pull the legalities and technicalities out of the whole situation, and look at the fact that Michael Grant stomped a child to death and brutally beat another one ... for him to only serve two years in prison and be out on the run for 26 years, and only serve 12 years total, that in itself is injustice," St. Clair says. "Even if his name was Joe Schmoe, I'd be fighting to keep him in prison." St. Clair is especially incensed by the minor penalty Grant received for escaping -- a 4 1/2-month extension of his prison term. LaPorte County prosecutors in 2000 decided against prosecuting him on an escape charge because they said it would be too hard to prove without witnesses to the escape. Christine Clark, of Elkhart, Grant's younger sister and only sibling, says she doesn't know whether Grant abused St. Clair. But she wouldn't find it hard to believe. "I do know my brother could be violent and he had a temper," she said recently. "He can't tell the truth. I would believe Chip before I'd believe him (Grant)." Clark said she wants nothing to do with Grant, and that she had to change her phone number to an unlisted number to avoid his letters and phone calls. After winning $1 million on the "Hoosier Millionaire" show in 2002, she built a new home in Elkhart County with an unlisted address, but Grant somehow found the address and has sent her letters there from prison. She tears them up when she receives them, she said. Clark said Grant lied to the parole board when he told it she agreed to provide him with some money and clothing upon his release from prison. Grant's uncle, Tom Judd, of Elkhart, also believes St. Clair. He said the late Miriam Grant, Judd's sister and Grant's mother, was the "biggest liar in town," and Grant was no different. "I can believe everything Chip says about Michael being abusive, because Michael was abusive," Judd says. "He had a mental problem. I don't know if he was ever checked out." He remembers a time when Grant brought Vicki Ingersoll and her two boys to Judd's home for a family picnic. "He treated them pretty rough," Judd said. "They couldn't do anything right." At one point, Grant grabbed Scott, the boy he would later be convicted of killing, roughly from the swimming pool, so forcefully that it amounted to a sock in the gut, Judd recalls. "I said, 'Hey, you don't hit kids like that.' We corrected him on it." St. Clair says he and his wife, Lisa, are delaying having children largely because they are so busy now with Justice For Children. But also in the back of their minds is the uncertainty over whether Grant will someday come looking for them. "If Michael Grant gets out and I have kids, now I have to worry about protecting them if he gets out of prison and he wants to get even, and take my kids from me," St. Clair said. "So that's a fear." St. Clair's mother, Leslie Mar, who helped Grant escape from prison, says police have "brainwashed" her son into believing he was abused. She said she hates him and never wants to see him again. "I wouldn't pee on him if he was on fire," she said recently. "Chip's just scared, that's his problem. He's never been man enough to stand up." She thinks Grant likely will try to harm St. Clair after his release. Grant insists that's not true. "Chip has nothing to fear from me," Grant writes. "I still love him with all my heart. I would never hurt him. I just want us to leave each other alone. When I am released, I want to go to a warm climate, either Southwest or California, and live out my remaining days in freedom." St. Clair says he refuses to let fear dictate his life. He will continue keeping his home address and phone number unlisted, but that will have more to do with protecting himself from parents he might anger through his work with Justice for Children than with hiding from Grant. St. Clair said many people have told him he could easily obtain a concealed weapon permit once Grant is released, but he will not do so. "He made me live in fear too many years in my life, and I'm not going to let him dominate anymore." He also refuses to let hatred darken his life. "I don't have any hate in my heart. I have pity, as I do with all these people who hurt children." When he speaks at schools, St. Clair urges children to tell someone if they are being abused, and he convinces them they can lead a happy and productive life someday despite the abuse. He also encourages victims to seek refuge in the arts, as he did. He says several children have thanked him for changing their lives. He realizes he might never know the answers to some questions, among them the identity of that little boy whose picture he discovered in a black chest. The back of the picture reads "Chip," but the boy is clearly not the same boy seen in other photos also labeled with that name. "I feel like I'm in a dark room with a thousand puzzle pieces and I'm trying to put this together," St. Clair said. He has questioned Judd and others with the hope that learning about Grant's childhood might help him better come to grips with the abuse he has perpetrated on him, the Ingersoll boys and perhaps others. "I would like to know as much as possible. To just say, 'He's a monster,' just makes you angry, with no reason. But if you can say he's a monster because of certain reasons, it allows you to come to some sort of understanding." St. Clair said he has resolved enough questions to be happy. "I now know what I want to do in life and the direction I'm headed," he says. "I have peace with that." For earlier chapters in this series, see www.southbendtribune.com.